Colleagues,

On this International Transgender Day of Visibility, we celebrate the achievements and contributions of the transgender and gender non-conforming communities around the world. At USDA, we are committed to the values of equity and inclusion rooted in justice and equal opportunity for our employees and those we serve. As we continue to work in support of the White House Executive Order 14035 on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Workforce and Executive Order 13985 on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government and develop our goals toward the execution of the White House’s National Gender Equity Strategy, we are using a gender expansive lens in our approach, to include work to support President Biden’s Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+) Persons Around the World through our international programs and here at home. We strongly believe that every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, violence and discrimination.

We will continue to lift up trans Americans through our important work to tackle climate change, advance equity and opportunity, create more and better markets, improve nutrition security and build a strong, healthy and inclusive workforce. We do this by standing by one another, including our trans colleagues here at the department. We also do this through our actions, including delivering critical programs and services to USDA customers without bias.

In the spirit of trans visibility, I want to highlight Charlize Katzenbach, a New Jersey farmer who—despite challenges—is now living her authentic life. She wants other trans farmers and trans people in agricultural communities to know they are not alone.

“You can be yourself and farm,” she said. “Being trans is no big deal. The more people who realize we do exist and are farmers like anybody else, and working like anybody else, the more people will be able to understand us and accept us.” You can find Charlize’s full story here on farmers.gov.

Here at USDA, our newly named Acting Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Leslie Weldon, Acting Director for the Office of Human Resources Management Anita Adkins, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights will continue to work closely with our agency and mission area civil rights offices and our Employee Resource Groups, including Equality USDA, to develop lasting and impactful measures in support of equity for LGBTQI+ individuals and specifically transgender, intersex, non-binary, and gender non-conforming employees and stakeholders. Preliminarily, these include:

• Developing USDA’s first ever Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Plan with concrete goals and objectives that advance our learning and training towards understanding and making USDA the best place to work.
• Drafting a proposed Departmental Regulation to provide guidance and support for transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming employees. The guidance will allow agencies, mission areas and offices the ability to develop individualized, employee-centered plans to ensure a positive transition process for all involved and eliminate previously identified barriers.
• Drafting a new communications guidebook and updating our USDA style guide for inclusive language to ensure we are modeling inclusivity to our customers and our employees.
• Developing external engagement sessions with LGBTQ+ stakeholders to hear from the community how we can ensure more equitable access to USDA programs.
• Advancing actions via our programmatic equity and civil rights, of which you can learn more of here: Equity | USDA.
• Supporting the work of the Equity Commission.

As federal employees, we embrace these actions because we value the dignity and respect of every individual. At USDA, each of us should feel valued, and empowered to bring our unique experiences and perspectives to the table.

Thank you for all that you do and for your support of one another!

Sincerely,

Secretary Vilsack